


Earthling Beginnings

by Enlightened_Introvert



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: elaborating on the earth gems, this is assuming Rose came from Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 02:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9413498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enlightened_Introvert/pseuds/Enlightened_Introvert
Summary: Darkness, cool and safe, content in the oblivion that was the prologue to life. No notion of leaving ever occurred to the gem until she was bursting from the dirt into the existence...





	1. Amethyst

Darkness, cool and safe, content in the oblivion that was the prologue to life. No notion of leaving ever occurred to the gem until she was bursting from the dirt into the existence.

The world was still dark and cool, but her hole was a mere pin prick compared to the place she now resided in. She marveled at the incredible size of her new home, gazing in wonder at the shiny things that stood poised against the walls, as if stopped mid-action. The young gem stumbled around, still getting used to her new-found mobility, and acquainted herself with the other inhabitants (mostly just boulders of varying sizes). Something about the situation felt wrong on a visceral level, but she chose to ignore it. She had no use for unpleasant feelings.

Try as she might, however, she could not avoid them forever. Idleness and boredom, loneliness, they all gnawed at her after an indeterminable amount of time. The sky above her home lightened and darkened, but it was always the same inside. Sometimes it rained, but never enough to make a difference. She knew every nook and cranny in the place like the back of her hand and she’s tangled with every unwelcome visitor that lumbered through (monstrous beasts that felt oddly familiar). She yearned for more, but she was too scared of the outside to leave.

After what felt like forever, she saw something entirely new: a being like her. She moved quietly, scanning the walls around her for any sign of danger. Amethyst, who had climbed to the top of her home, could see two other moving dots in the distance. By some unidentifiable instinct, she knew it would be unwise to trust these strange beings. She swung down from her perch into the nearest hole and watched the gem below her.

Amethyst felt at once that this gem was a force to be reckoned with. She simply radiated grace and strength, and Amethyst felt a wave of fear spread through her, but she didn’t understand why. This gem didn’t _look_ all that scary. When the gem passed, she jumped down into the next hole, and the next. For a second, the gem paused and glanced over her shoulder, before proceeding. Climbing over one of the injectors, she was now almost level with the gem’s head. She leaned in to get a better look, positively trembling by now. She was only a foot from her hair when the gem suddenly spun around and they were nose-to-nose.

With a squeal, Amethyst reeled back and slipped off the injector, hitting the ground with a thump. Frantically, she scrambled up into her hole, which was thankfully right there. She heard the gem try to stifle a laugh; with a rustle of fabric, the hem of her dress came into view. Amethyst pressed herself against the back of the hole in fear. Then, there she was, crouching in the entrance. She smiled kindly at her, letting Amethyst relax a bit.

“I’m sorry,” she chuckled. “Are you here alone?”

Amethyst cleared her throat, realizing she understood everything the gem was saying, despite never having spoken or heard the language before. After a moment, she tried her voice. “I guess so. Some monsters come through here sometimes.”

The gem nodded. “My friends and I are looking for a monster right now. Do you want to help us find it?”

“Um…” Amethyst wasn’t sure how to feel about the situation.

The gem’s smile quirked sympathetically, and tried again. “My name’s Rose, what’s yours?” She said, leaning back from the hole to let her out. She had a feeling Rose already knew the answer, but she answered anyway.

“I’m Amethyst, I guess. I just kinda know somehow.” Rose looked satisfied by the answer. “I can help.”

The gem held out her hand, and Amethyst pushed her uneasiness down and grabbed it. All of her fear subsided upon contact, and she knew at once that this gem didn’t want to hurt her. She and Rose moved through the kindergarten towards the friends she mentioned to search for the troublemaker. Soon afterwards, she left the kindergarten behind in favor of a new life full of discoveries.


	2. Jasper

Darkness, cool and safe, content in the oblivion that was the prologue to life. No notion of leaving ever occurred to the gem until she was bursting from the dirt into the existence.

She exploded dramatically from the wall of the kindergarten, trailed by streams of molten rock. Immediately, she was assaulted by the sounds of battle, with gems all around her tearing each other to pieces. Before she could even set foot outside her now smoldering hole, she was ripped viciously from it by her hair by an unfamiliar gem and shoved face-first to the ground. The force was so great that it would have certainly ended her short existence, if it weren’t for the helmet that materialized on her head a millisecond before impact. Instead, her neck was jarred painfully upward.

Thinking fast, she braced herself against the ground and kicked the gem squarely in the knee. While she was incapacitated, she plowed into her head-first, using the only defense she had in her favor. With an explosion of light, the enemy was reduced to her gemstone. Shaking with agitation, she looked away from her enemy and prepared for the next assault.

The commotion around her was disorienting, to say the least. The noise was deafening: scream mixed with clashing weapons and explosions, as fallen gems released their physical forms. She could scarcely determine who was friend and who was foe, so she charged towards the orange and red-striped gems and hoped that was the right choice.

One of them caught a glimpse of her and nearly toppled over the tiny red-orange gem in front of her. The tiny one, hardly fazed by nearly being squashed, let out a cry of delight at their new companion. “You’re finally out! And you’re HUGE!”

“You’re just what we need!” Another one shouted over the din. The gem beside her cried, "Let’s go knock some gems!”

Jasper quickly proved how capable she was on the battlefield. She made her way through the kindergarten, taking out enemies left and right—Crystal Gems, she was quick to learn. This led to an even greater battle in the desert surrounding it. With her sisters by her side, Jasper destroyed dozens of gems by the time the sun sank below the horizon, after only a few hours of existence. It was this feat alone that gave her renown, the Facet Nine Kindergarten Quartz that Could, and every battle after that added to her reputation as a force to be reckoned with. She was a hero, a celebrity to those gullible gems on Homeworld.

To her fellow soldiers, she was Beta. To Fire Agate, her commander, she was a very lucky piece of Earth dirt that was unworthy of her position. To herself, she was a failure, a miserable waste of resources.

Everyone she ever cared about was gone. Her sisters from Beta were all probably shattered, at least that’s what everyone led her to believe. Jasper hadn’t even seen any gems from the Prime kindergarten, save for a few loyal soldiers that she was forbidden to communicate with; the diamonds learned their lesson about trusting gems from Earth. Her diamond…Jasper hated the feeling that twisted in her chest every time she thought about it. _Feelings are for weaker gems,_ she would repeat in her head, _soldiers aren’t influenced by their emotions._ A rebellious corner of her mind would add, _we only act on the diamond’s emotions._ She learned to replace that hurt with a deep hatred for Earth and for herself, who had the audacity to originate there, and especially for the gem that started this mess in the first place: Rose Quartz.

It was with this mindset that she took the orders to accompany a Peridot on a mission to Earth, along with a very reluctant Lapis Lazuli, who had been wrongfully trapped in a mirror on that forsaken planet for millennia and now acted as their informant. With Peridot’s report—which was confirmed by Lapis’ testimony—of gems that were causing problem, it was obvious that some Crystal Gems were still around. With the possibility of Rose Quartz still being alive and well on Earth, there was only one thing on Jasper’s agenda: revenge.


	3. Rose Quartz

Darkness, cool and safe, content in the oblivion that was the prologue to life. No notion of leaving ever occurred to the gem until she was bursting from the dirt into the existence.

She burst from the wall of the cliff and landed much too slowly and softly for the distance she dropped. As soon as her feet touched the ground, however, her legs gave way beneath her and she fell to the ground. She gasped as she felt the ground pulse beneath her hands; she could feel the pounding in the center of her being in way that was both bewildering and exhilarating.

She was brought back to the moment when a couple of gems finally noticed her. Each grabbing an arm, they hoisted her back onto her feet. One began to speak to her, no doubt listing off pertinent information for her to know, yet she could not shake the lingering feeling that tingled in her fingertips.

“Did you feel that?” She said, almost surprised by the sound of her own voice.

“What?” The gem replied, clearly annoyed that she had been interrupted.

“The…uh…nothing, never mind.” She wasn’t sure what to call it. She wasn’t sure if it was anything. With a pang of shame, she added, “sorry.”

The gem sighed in exasperation, but it was good-natured. She repeated what she just said, “You are Rose Quartz, Facet 1, cut-5XB. Your purpose is to protect and serve your diamond, Pink Diamond. Mere miles from here is the place of her origin, and you have the good fortune to have originated on the same planet: Earth.”

“Earth,” Rose repeated, looking around at the impressive formations around her. The sun was setting, the last rays of light bathing the pink stone in orange. She caught glimpses of white-capped mountains and rolling green hills. It was so beautiful it hurt. Although she didn’t know it yet, Rose was inextricably connected to this planet, and it had become just as much a part of her as she had been a part of it.

Suddenly, everyone quickly lined up, and the gem—Rose assumed she was also a Rose Quartz—led her to the group. She mimicked her companions as they crossed their hands in front of their chest in a diamond-shaped salute, and cast her gaze upward at the giant gem that glided into their facet.

She was gorgeous. Her face looked like it had been carved from the stone she’d emerged from, and she moved with a grace befitting her status. A small part of Rose felt that she had no right to stare at so powerful a being, but a larger, more impulsive part of her wanted to commit this important moment to memory. Pink Diamond’s gaze landed on her for a second, and she smiled. That was it, that was the moment. Rose smiled back and looked down, showing that she wasn’t obstinate as she appeared.

Rose could not recall a time in her long life that she had felt as content as she did then. Before she learned of the vices of Homeworld and the Authority, both towards the earth and towards their own subjects, it was long days of basic training; they were happy times, because nothing was made real to her. It was all a lie, but at least it was a nice fantasy.

The first tragedy in her life was when the ships arrived. They arrived unannounced, and before the day was out, they were flying away to Homeworld. Rose felt as if a piece of her had been left behind. It relived those happy days on Earth as she was thrown into the harsh realities of gemkind.

It died when she returned to Earth, when she rebelled. It was obliterated with her kindergarten, now a pile of rubble at the bottom of a vast sea, and it was shattered with her diamond. Still, there were times when she would stand on the shore, looking out at where her home used to be, and weep for what was lost.


End file.
